UCWeb to invest $488m in fight for browser stake

UCWeb Inc, a popular Chinese mobile Web browser provider, will inject capital totaling 3 billion yuan ($488 million) over the next three years, the company's CEO announced Tuesday at an industry event in Beijing, attempting to add to the company's strength to fend off rivalries that have been heating up in the mobile browser arena.

With a three-year capital injection into talent, overseas expansion and the mobile Internet ecosystem, the company looks to maintain its current position in the field, Yu Yongfu, CEO of UCWeb, said Tuesday during the Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC), without giving further details.

The GMIC, Asia's biggest mobile Internet event, is held yearly in Beijing, and this year's conference, with more than 10,000 attendees from over 30 countries and regions, gathers some of China's best-known brands in the industry including Tencent, Baidu and Xiaomi.

Beijing-based UCWeb, a mobile Web browser veteran founded in 2004, has long been China's largest third-party mobile Web browser provider, but has in recent years come under growing pressure from peers, especially giant Internet firms such as Tencent and Baidu.

While some research agency data suggests UCWeb still leads China's market for mobile Web browsers, research firms such as Analysys International have released figures indicating it has ceded the crown to Tencent, which has quickly risen to prominence in the field of mobile Web browsers.

Excluding the likes of Safari, Chrome and IE - the default Web browsers of mobile operating systems - Tencent's QQ Mobile Browser ranked No.1 in China's mobile Web browser market with a 40.5 percent share by cumulative user accounts by February, followed by UCWeb's UC Browser with 30.9 percent and Baidu with 8.7 percent, according to Analysys International.

"Competition in the market is ever intensifying, as companies such as Tencent and Baidu, with sufficient ammunition in almost every area, are eyeing a firmer hold in the sector," Yan Xiaojia, a senior analyst at Analysys International, told the Global Times Tuesday.

UCWeb's Yu also refuted on Tuesday market rumors about the company's potential acquisition by Baidu, stressing that his company maintains ample liquidity and is instead actively looking toward strategic investment and merger opportunities.